Detailed Pentagon plans for a military attack on Iran are far more extensive than has been reported in the U.S., according to top British military analysts. There have been occasional news reports on various strategic bombing options - both conventional and nuclear - but this is the first comprehensive look at the full range of Pentagon plans.

A new report obtained by RawStory.com concludes that the United States has made major preparations to attack Iran, and that such an attack will likely target much more than just weapons or nuclear facilities.

Raw Story's article breaking this story and including expert responses to the report is HERE.

The authors are Dr Dan Plesch and Martin Butcher. Dr Plesch is Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies’ Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy. Martin Butcher is an international consultant on security politics.

Excerpts:

The study concludes that the US has made military preparations to destroy Iran’s WMD, nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus and economic infrastructure within days if not hours of President George W. Bush giving the order. The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely. The US retains the option of avoiding war, but using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran’s actions.

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Any attack is likely to be on a massive multi-front scale but avoiding a ground invasion. Attacks focused on WMD facilities would leave Iran too many retaliatory options, leave President Bush open to the charge of using too little force and leave the regime intact.

• US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours.• US ground, air and marine forces already in the Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan can devastate Iranian forces, the regime and the state at short notice.• Some form of low level US and possibly UK military action as well as armed popular resistance appear underway inside the Iranian provinces or ethnic areas of the Azeri, Balujistan, Kurdistan and Khuzestan. Iran was unable to prevent sabotage of its offshore-to-shore crude oil pipelines in 2005.• Nuclear weapons are ready, but most unlikely, to be used by the US, the UK and Israel. The human, political and environmental effects would be devastating, while their military value is limited.• Israel is determined to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons yet has the conventional military capability only to wound Iran’s WMD programmes.

David Swanson is the author of "When the World Outlawed War," "War Is A Lie" and "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union." He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online (more...)